


Cut Your Losses

by squire



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ben is a little shit, Crack, Hate at First Sight, Humour, Hux is an asshole, M/M, Modern AU, obviously a match made in heaven, or maybe love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-22 12:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9608009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squire/pseuds/squire
Summary: Ben has to spend the summer holiday at Luke's farm. He hates it. After he meets a pretty ginger in a local town, he hates it even more. Or... maybe a little less?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @twistedsardonic over on Tumblr, who asked for Kylux AU being set in Czech Republic. Thank you, lovely, and thank you for donating for Fandom Trumps Hate!

Ben stares at the flight tickets. Boarding pass, seat 14F. Ten hours flight eastwards, into the future. God, Leia is serious.

“Mom, you can’t be serious.”

“I am. I take your wellbeing very seriously, Ben. And it wouldn’t have come to this if you would, too.”

She hands him a suitcase. Ben almost expects, in his surprise-stunned, this-isn’t-happening haze, that it would be already packed for him. A half-hysterical giggle escapes him when he finds it still empty.

“You’ve picked up three fights in the last two weeks, Ben. I am tired of parents threatening to sue me. If you want to come back to that school in September, we’ve got to work on this.”

“But - you can’t just send me away for the whole summer! I got friends here!”

“These ‘friends’ are the ones who get you in trouble, and make sure you’re standing front and centre when it goes down!”

Leia takes him by the shoulders. She hasn’t been able to stare him down for the past three years now, remaining small and getting seemingly smaller with every inch and every trouble Ben grew into. But God, her eyes didn’t lose any of their strength even from this angle.

Ben doesn’t know what to say. It stings with shame but he knows she was right. One of the reasons he is so quick to throw punches is that he isn’t good with words, and couldn’t lie if he tried. His ‘friends’ are assholes. But it is either them or…. no one.

“I can’t just drop my training, Mom. Couch Snoke wants me–”

“That psycho,” Leia snarls through gritted teeth, “only wants to exploit you. You’re his best boxer now, when you listen to him telling you to rely more on rage than technique and discipline, but how long can you keep it up before you burn out? He’ll toss you away when you’re no longer useful to him. You could be so much  _ more _ , Ben. I agreed to let you do boxing when I thought it would help with your anger management issues but Snoke only makes it worse.”

“Please, Mom. Don’t take this away from me.” Ben wishes he could punch something now. Snoke - yeah, maybe he is a bit creepy but he also is the only one who keeps telling Ben he  _ can _ when everyone else seems to say he  _ shouldn’t. _

“I’m not. It’s only for the holidays. It’s up to what  _ you _ want, and what  _ you _ want to do with your life, but I want you to make the decision after the holidays. That’s all I’m asking for. Take a little time away from all the things that keep making you angry. If you still think Snoke hung the stars when you come back–” she draws a long breath, “–then I’ll step back. Promise. But now I want you to get some perspective.”

“By sending me away?” Ben hates how small it sounds. For fuck’s sake, he’s almost nineteen.

“Oh, Ben.” She huggs him tight, ignoring the roll of his eyes. Thankfully not commenting on the way he returns the embrace, clinging to her like a child. “You won’t be alone. I spoke to the school counsellor. She suggested you should spend some time somewhere quiet, preferably with animals.”

“Mom, I’m not going to therapy to pet dogs and cats all day–”

“I know darling. That’s why I’m sending you to Luke.”

“Oh God.” Ben groans. He hasn’t seen his hippie Uncle in ten years, Leia maybe in five. “Old bat’s grown tired of his hermit cave in Greece? So now he’s running an animal shelter in what, Transylvania?”

“He’s having a go at organic farming somewhere in Czech Republic, actually,” Leia says primly. Ben suspects she disapproves a little of her brother’s bohemian ways, too.

“ _ Somewhere _ ,” Ben parrots after her. “So you don’t even know the name of the middle of nowhere place you’re sending your only child to. Splendid, Mom.”

“Hush,” Leia pats his cheek. “I’m sure it will be a lovely place.”  

 

*

 

The ‘lovely place’ is a decrepit mouldy farmhouse surrounded by seemingly endless muddy fields, with nothing but earth closet and no cell phone signal. The farm’s only connection to civilization is a unkept bumpy road and a bus connection, operated twice a day by a loud, dilapidated, overheated trashcan driven by a smelly, grumpy driver. Not to mention that said civilization is a sleepy hollow of a town where nobody speaks English and everything is hopelessly closed on Sunday. Including the only café with a free wi-fi.  

Ben is hunched over his phone under a convenient balcony, trying to shield the screen from the obnoxious drizzle that’s been dampening his clothes and his mood alike since– well, forever. He shivers. It’s July but this country seems to have no concept of summer. It’s been raining, pouring, or at least drizzling every day since Ben came here and it doesn’t look like stopping anytime soon.

The sharp trill of a bell behind him startles him so much that he almost drops his phone into a puddle. His phone - the only thing keeping him same in this organic farming hell. He growls and turns, about to tell whoever startled him where exactly they can stick their stupid bell - not that he hopes anyone would actually understand him - when his eyes catch on a flash of ginger, the colour as bright and shocking as sunshine in this dreary weather - and the indignant reproach dies on his lips.

A young man with gorgeous fiery hair and icy glare is standing in the half-opened glass door, an expression of angry disapproval written all over his freckled face. He’s saying something, it sounds like a rude question from the lilt at the end of it. For all Ben knows of Czech, he could be saying anything. Ben tried - contrary to what he sometimes lets people think, he can be smart when he wants to - but there’s probably a special circle of hell set aside for this language. To be fair, this man could be wishing him a nice day. Ben’s experience with locals has taught him that they tend to look as if someone got their knickers into a twist every morning without actually being cross with anyone.

The man keeps talking and Ben suddenly notices he’s been blocking the door to a shop. His gaze flicks up to read a sign:  _ Kadeřnictví Kroutilová. _ There are big glossy photos of artfully arranged hairstyles in the shop window. A hairdresser’s saloon, then.

The air coming through the crack in the door is warm, smelling of shampoo and cologne. Ben hasn’t seen a boy his age - well, one that wouldn’t be doggedly driving a tractor on weekdays and mindlessly driving around a badly tuned car on weekends - in  _ so long _ and he has nothing better to do. He smiles.

“Could I get a haircut?”

The hairdresser shuts up and frowns. Oh, right. No luck with English here. Ben shrugs and points at his hair, fingers snipping in an imitation of scissors. It’s been getting a little into his eyes lately, anyway. Even when he won’t be able to chat, he can still get an eyeful of good looking guy.

The hairdresser replies with something that sounds a little more polite and steps aside, holding the door open.

It’s a little saloon - two revolving chairs, two sets of tools, and one old woman dozing off on a flower-patterned sofa in the corner, with dye applied to her thinning hair. Ben folds himself into the narrow chair by the washing stand and tries not to be too obvious in staring at the nice ass that presents itself when the redhead bends to sweep away the hair clippings left by previous customer.

He thinks he catches a smirk when the boy straightens - and wouldn’t that be finally  _ something _ worth his time in this awful place - but then every last hope of a change of luck is squashed when the boy lifts an elegant, finely-boned hand and plucks a piece of straw from behind Ben’s ear.

Ben feels his face burn in anger at the unfairness of it all. It doesn’t matter that he comes from a city with more people than live in this whole goddamn country. Here, in front of this gorgeous, sharp, clean-shaven man, Ben is the country bumpkin, with straw sticking out of his hair from when he was helping Luke muck out the stables this morning. Hell, he probably still reeks of manure.

He looks away, eyes sweeping over the yellowed photos decorating the walls, hairstyles that were last in style in the eighties, and heaves a long-suffering sigh. One of the perks of being an American in a Czech country town is that he can let his thoughts run loud and freely whenever he likes.

“I suppose you wouldn’t know how but if you could make me look something other than your great grandfather, that would be nice,” he huffs. As predicted, the hairdresser shows no sign of offence. He simply adjusts the water temperature and begins to massage Ben’s scalp with his fingertips, and… well, it feels fucking amazing.

Ben is a bit sorry for his pettiness. The boy is probably doing his best, stuck in a town where every man wears the same haircut their father wore. Not much chance to practice the hipster lumberjack sweep around here.

Hair dripping, smelling nice and hopefully free of any straw, Ben relocates into the revolving chair. The mirror in front of him is a bit rusty around the edges and when Ben ducks his chin a little, he can see the reflection of the other mirror on the opposite wall. The hairdresser is quite tall, so tall that he has to lean forward a little every now and then to clip the hair around Ben’s ears and hairline, and his ass in the mirror is a masterpiece.

The quiet  _ snip snip snip _ and the light touches, tilting his head here and there, lull Ben into a trance. He snaps into focus only when the cloth around his neck is pulled off, and for the first time since he sat down, he takes a look at his own reflection.

He looks… good, actually. More than. He never thought his locks could look  _ this  _ good parted on the side, with the layered haircut letting them fall over his forehead in a lazy, self-confident wave. Behind him, the hairdresser, sporting an intense look of concentration, is running his fingers tacky with some waxy product through the locks, making sure they stay the way the should. Ben is impressed.

“Um...thanks, I think,” he scratches his neck, itchy with the fine bits of hair that always get under the collar no matter how many towels he’s wearing around his neck. The boy gives him a quick smile. He looks very pleased with himself. Well, Ben thinks, he should be.

The hairdresser rings him up using a honest-to-God calculator and Ben leaves, lighter of a considerable sum of money and feeling better than he had in… forever, truly.

Which lasts exactly until the next morning when he climbs down the stairs to get breakfast and Luke greets him with raised eyebrows:

“Did you try cutting your own hair using a bowl?”

Still bleary eyed and only half-awake, Ben snatches the first mirror he can find and freezes.

The parting on the side is gone, his hair having reverted to its natural down-the-middle parting it’s grown into for the past nineteen years. With no product to keep the hair falling forward, it’s taken to fall backwards and around, as his locks usually do…

...and it looks like a bowl cut.

That fucking hairdresser gave him a fucking bowl cut.

For a moment, Ben wants to think that the boy simply made a mistake. Small town, not much practice… Then he recalls the small, self-satisfied smile on those full, pink lips.

That asshole knew precisely what he was doing.  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to know what on Earth is a certain ginger asshole doing in small country town in Czech Republic, stay tuned for Chapter 2.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, look. Chapter count bumped up again. Why, squire, why.

“Is it helping yet?”

Luke stands in the barn door, arms crossed, a critical tilt to his head. Ben catches the punching back on the return swing and wipes the sweat from his brow.

“I’m training, Uncle.”

The punching bag, hanging from a beam under the roof in an otherwise nearly empty barn, was a peace offering from Luke when Ben arrived. Right now, Ben feels like another round is due before he can safely go back to the town to have a word with the hairdresser. From Luke’s smirk, he has guessed that, too.

“Leave the bag.” Luke is pulling off his jacket and pulls out a pair of wraps from his pocket.

“You’re kidding me.”

“I used to freestyle a lot when I was your age.”

“No offence Uncle but I could take you down with one hand tied behind my back.”

Luke snorts. “And what about with your eyes closed instead?”

“Is that some part of your weird esoteric ways to ‘connect with your inner self’?” Ben mocks, even as he accepts the blindfold. Never one to back down from challenge.

“Pah. You’re connected with your inner self enough already, Ben. What you need is to try and connect with the world around you.”

A couple of minutes and smarting bruises later, and perhaps from the lack of things to actually see, Ben is starting to see Luke’s point. It’s harder to replay your own misfortune over and over in your head and to use that rage to deal out punches when you have to focus on what goes on around you. Sounds. Steps. Weight of bodies shifting on the old floorboards. Gusts of air parted by an incoming blow.

He lands a couple of hits, more luck than anything, and Luke grunts and laughs.

“Seems you have better technique than I thought,” he concedes as he pulls off the blindfold. Ben blinks at the sudden flood of daylight. He feels strangely lighter.

“Seems you’re not such a crap teacher as I thought you’d be,” Ben retorts.

“Good. I’ve heated up the water boiler. The bus for the town leaves in thirty minutes.”

Ben is so grateful, for Luke’s matter-of-fact acceptance and for the extra thought regarding the one functioning boiler that’s currently eating up the expensive peak electricity, that he only swallows and nods before he makes a run for the shower.

“Was it the ginger?” Luke calls out from the kitchen, later, when Ben is trying to towel off his hair and pull on his jeans at the same time. The question makes him trip over the twisted trouser legs and almost fall flat on his ass.

“No, I’m not dipping into witchcraft, Ben,” Luke grins, far too pleased with himself. “The old Mr. Kroutil was the one who sold me the spare diesel generator. I learned he has a daughter who runs a hairdressing business in town, and that his grandson is staying with them for the summer.”

“Your Czech must be awesome, Uncle,” Ben mutters, pulling a knit cap over his head and wincing. It’s going to be stifling but he’s not going to town looking like an 19. century orphan, thank you very much.

“Why, yes, I’ve been practising a lot,” Luke beams in counterpoint to Ben’s sourness. He was always good with languages, traipsing around the world and picking up dialects as easily as other people pick up pebbles from the beach.

“And yeah, it was that ginger asshole,” Ben grumbles, looking around for his phone. “Fucker doesn’t even speak English so I can’t tell him where he can stick his fancy scissors.”

“ _ Ben. _ ” Luke looks half mildly horrified and half suppressing laughter. “It’s pity you can’t communicate, though, isn’t it? I mean, this is not the end of the world. Young people can actually understand English very well from what I’ve seen.”

“No, they really can’t,” Ben heaves a heartsick sigh. “They just give you weird looks and then get angry.”

“They learn Queen’s English in school,” Luke muses. “Maybe if you dropped your east coast accent they’d understand you better. Remember,” he pats Ben’s shoulder as he shoves him out of the door, the bus already coming out from a turn and slowing down to the stop in front of the farm, “connect with the world around you. Put in some effort.”

 

*

 

By the time Ben arrives back onto the crime scene (because his haircut is a crime if you ask him), he’s already putting all his effort into  _ not _ screw it all and buy a shaver instead. Of course this has to be the day when the Sun finally decided to grace this part of world with her face and the humid heat after days of drizzle is so oppressive that Ben’s collar is soaked with sweat steadily trickling from under his cap.

He walks right in, the bell above the door chiming, and it’s worth to see the brief startled look crossing the ginger’s face. Then the familiar haughtily smug expression settles back and Ben is glad that he’d spent so much time punching a bag this morning.

He takes off his cap, the sweat-flattened hair looking even worse than this morning, and points to his head.

“I’m here to claim for refund,” he says. “Or a fix.” He knows that when he frowns, stands broader, bares his teeth just so, people usually find him threatening.

This asshole, however, doesn’t seem to be cowed by the display in the slightest. He begins to arrange his tools, as if nothing happened, and Ben opens his mouth to tell him a few choice words no matter the language barrier when there’s a creak of door at the back and a tall, middle-aged woman walks in.

It must be Missis Kroutilová, Ben remembers Luke’s words and the shop sign. Her hair is dark and highlighted in places, probably to cover the first patches of gray, but her eyes are the same as the boy’s, blue-green and bright, and currently wide in shock as she takes in Ben’s haircut.

“Oh, hello,” Ben says at the same time she says something in Czech, and then her son is saying something too, quickly, probably trying to talk himself out of trouble. Her eyes flicker once, twice between the two of them and then she giggles.

Great. Pity the mirrors around here are so rusty, Ben is sure he’d catch tetanus trying to drive a fist through them.

Still giggling and shaking her head, the mother walks out of the shop and Ben is left staring at his nemesis, who’s eyeing him warily back. There’s a brief moment of tense silence and then the hairdresser apparently comes to a decision. He waves a graceful hand in the direction of the washstand and smiles.

Well. Ben is not going to say no to a scalp massage. Last time it was a bliss.

Seated once again with a large cloth wrapped around him and watching the look of concentration of the ginger’s face in the mirror, Ben tries not to think about how much he’s enjoying this.

“I’m probably a fool to ever let you near my hair again,” he says conversationally. No reaction, just scissors snipping off small bits of hair here and there. Ben sighs. It’s like trying to have a conversation with a brick wall. But, also, talking loud like this is oddly therapeutic. So he lets his mouth ramble.

“I was being an idiot yesterday you know. Well, I’ve been one for the better part of the last year to be honest. They sent me here to get better and it feels like I’m serving time in a fucking gulag. So I lashed out. And I was really sorry about it, for a while, before I saw what you did to my hair. I wanted to shave it off but you’ve seen my ears. Not the best idea.”

Ben closes his eyes, zoning out again under those gentle touches and warm, comforting smell.

“So you again it is. At least I got you to wash my hair again, you’ve got some serious magic in your hands. And you’ve got a nice ass too which is a bon–OW!!”

Ben is violently snapped out of his trance by a pang of sharp pain. The hairdresser’s hand must have slipped, and now there’s a trickle of red dripping down from Ben’s earlobe. The ginger stares at it, horrified, aghast and getting paler by the minute.

“You fucking shit!” Ben yells, clamping a hand over his ear before the blood gets to his collar. “You nearly cut my ear off!”

That seems to shake the hairdresser from whatever stupor he fell into. “Well I’m sorry!” he yells back. “Anyway I barely nicked it, and even if I did cut it off, I’d like to think I was doing you a favour!”

The words bounce off the rusted mirrors and Ben blinks. That was… English. Pure, posh, with tantalizingly rolled r’s, and… unbelievably rude.

Hell. That’s what this place is. Nothing but animals and mud and morons and the only good-looking man for miles around being a giant asshole who lets people make idiots of themselves for fun.

Ben rises from the chair, tearing off the cloth. Tiny hair clippings fly everywhere. His haircut is not nearly done, he can see that but he doesn’t care. He twists the fabric in his hand, throwing it on the floor. He takes a step closer to the man and this time, the man takes a step back.

“Do you know why they sent me here?” he growls. “I nearly killed three guys in the past month.”

Chin held high, icy blue-green eyes remaining cool – but Ben doesn’t miss the small nervous flicker of the man’s gaze towards the front door - checking out escape route - and that’s enough to deflate him a bit. He forces his fists to unclench and shakes his head.

“You’re not worth it, getting in jail,” he mutters. “See you never, twink ass.”

The chime of the bell above the door is a mockery of merriment. The bus is not going for another three hours. Ben decides to walk. It’s a long way, along the cart tracks, over balks and drainage troughs, but at least nobody sees him.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I'm going to need another chapter for Hux to explain himself.


	3. Chapter 3

Ben is busying himself working on the stable roof repairs for the rest of the day. His father, on the rare occasions he was actually present, used to dabble in carpentry so Ben for once knows what he’s doing. Besides, the smell of fresh wood is nice.

As the sun is starting to set, he can feel the back of his neck burning. He didn’t think to put on sunscreen when he went to town today, not expecting the sun come out at last. He’d worn his hair shoulder-length for so long that the back of his neck remained milk-white. Of course, during the nearly three hours long surly walk home it turned scarlet.

He’s thrown out of his sulking by the sound of a car in the driveway. It’s not Luke’s battered van by the low even hum of the obviously well kept engine, so it’s probably some people losing their way and wanting to ask directions. Ben slides down the stable roof, climbs down the ladder and takes the back door to the house, diving straight for the closet where they keep tools. He needs a bigger hammer.

He hears muffled voices from the front hall, Luke and someone else. Better to get sparse again. It’s not that he’s looking funny… it’s just that he feels like a piece of shit.

He overreacted, back at the hairdresser’s. It was just a little cut that stopped bleeding before he even got back to the farm, and there was only so much blood because ear wounds always bleed profusely. The ginger looked for a moment genuinely taken aback by it, it didn’t seem as if he’d done it on purpose. Hell, that would be a bad hairdressing business if one would habitually nick annoying customer’s ears. And Ben had yelled at him, and threatened him, and definitely ruined every little chance he ever had with him.

Ben is hammering nails into the planks, concentrating on the cathartic activity so that he completely misses the sound of light steps below.

”Is it safe to come near when you’re holding a hammer?” puts a voice from beneath, lilted with amusement and just a little bit tentative. Ben swears those rolled r’s have his heart beat faster.

He puts away the hammer and wipes his hands clean before he looks down, right into the upturned face of the ginger bane of his existence. The low lazy light of peach-pink sky catches on the burning copper of the young man’s hair and Ben’s breath catches a little, too.

”Hey”, the man says, lips quirked into something that could be smile. Ben slides and climbs back down, carefully - the last thing he wants now is to get his overgrown feet tangled between the rungs.

“Hey,” he echoes when they’re at eye-level - and it’s indeed a fresh novelty, not to have stoop and hunch to maintain eye contact. He shifts from foot to foot, feeling a little awkward when no conversation is happening.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he rushes out - at the same time when the man decides to blurt out “I’m sorry I cut you.”

Mouths clamped shut again, twin looks of matching surprise on either face - and then the ginger smiles. Ben can’t help not to mirror it.

“I, um, actually I came to finish your haircut, if you like,” the ginger points to a little leather case that peeks from his crossbody bag.

“I don’t know, it’s not so bad as it is,” Ben shrugs. It’s true, the worst of the offending bowl cut is gone and the rest will grow back in no time, he’s always been lucky like that. He passes his fingers through what’s left of his mane and hopes he’s not imagining the little sharper intake of breath when the man’s eyes follow the movement of his hand.

“Not that I don’t trust your skills, Mr. Kroutil–”

“It’s Hux. Kroutilová is my mother’s name.”

“Hux.” Ben nods. The name suits the ginger, sharp like glass and just that little bit pretentious. “I’m Ben. Your father is from Ireland, right?”

“In,” Hux corrects him. “My mother came to Ireland for work, got hired into my father’s house as domestic help, things happened. Father refused to marry her but did claim paternity of me.”

Hux looks briefly to the side, face expressionless. “I live there. He pays for good schools. And he sends me over here for holidays so he doesn’t have to look at me too much.”

“My father left us when I was ten,” Ben says, driven by a sudden need to repay this openness. “I guess that was about the time I started beating up people.”

“What a pair of expats we make,” Hux grins, a little warmer but still cautious.

“We should stick together,” Ben says, feeling bold, “instead of getting into each other’s hair - well, metaphorically speaking, of course. I rather liked it when you had your hands in my hair, actually.”

“You did tell me,” Hux laughs. “Along with some other things.”

Ben suddenly remembers that he had complimented Hux’s ass - aloud and in front of him - while thinking the man couldn’t understand him. He blushes. He hopes it’s not visible under the sunburn.

“Was that why you cut me?” he groans. “I’m sorry if it offended you–”

“No,” Hux says, definitely faster than his usual reserved speech pattern, “it simply surprised me, is all.”

Somewhere close a garden gate croaks in its hinges - Luke coming to get the ducks in - and it reminds Ben of the time of day.

“Would you–” he tries, “I mean, I gotta get the horses under roof, it’s getting late, you can go to the house if you want, there’s–” he trails off. There is a TV but only with four local analog channels, grainy and shaky. No luck getting cable here.

“Or I could go with you and help,” Hux is grinning fully now, lifting one eyebrow at the look Ben gives him, from the top of his carefully styled hair to the tips of his quality shoes.

“If you want to get bitten, be my guest,” he shrugs at last and heads off to the grazing where he’d led the horses to earlier as to spare them the hammering directly above their heads. Hux falls into step beside him, as easily as if he’s been doing it for years.

“We’ve got two, Upsilon and Finalizer,” Ben starts to tell him. “They’re race horses, thoroughbreds, that’s why those weird names. Luke – my Uncle - got them god knows from where but I heard the original owner was a crook. Doping, illegal training methods… anyway, Luke wants them eventually for people who come here, like, for the ‘full country experience’ or some other bullshit. Little kids getting a ride while their parents are working out the stress of modern life by mucking out the dung.”

Hux pulls a sympathetic scowl. 

“Well Luke’s always full of ideas,” Ben continues. “He thinks he could rent them out as therapy horses. If they ever calm down. Right now it seems to me that it’s them who needs a therapy. Upsilon is a sweet one but gets spooked easily and Finalizer is a mean biter. I swear that beast is out for my blood.”

They arrive to the split rail fence enclosing a small grazing. A beautiful gray horse is already pressed to the gate, clearly waiting to be let out, so Ben slips under the beams to get the other one, a slender horse as black as coal, that’s keeping himself to the farthermost nook of the pen.

It takes some gentle coaxing and slow approach but eventually Ben has Upsilon’s headstall in hand. When he turns around to lead him out, he is greeted by the sight of Hux sitting on Finalizer - bareback - with the best ‘what’s-the-big-deal’ expression Ben’s ever seen, and Finalizer himself is meekly standing as if he never hurt a fly.

“Wow,” Ben manages. “He threw me down and tried to trample over me when I tried that.”

Hux shrugs, looking very pleased with himself. “Oh please. Finalizer simply needs someone who’s used to be on top.”

Ben could be mistaken but that definitely did sound like a double entendre.

They walk back to the stables, Upsilon nosing along Ben’s pockets for carrots and Finalizer gliding with thoroughbred elegance, every step majestic and graceful. Ben is almost sure the damn horse is putting on a show.

Hux and Finalizer wait for Upsilon to be stalled first, and when Ben gets out, Hux looks down on him with a smug grin and then he lifts his leg  _ above _ the horse’s neck to sit sideways, like a lady, waiting to be helped down. That casual demonstration of how high he can lift his leg makes Ben’s throat go a little dry. Hux is definitely putting on a show.

“You look…” he smiles up, suddenly unsure what to say. Beautiful, in the evening sun that’s making his freckles glowing like gold dust, lean and lovely and somehow untouchable.

“If you say dainty I’m telling Finalizer to bite you,” Hux says, haughty and smirking from his dainty sideways seat.

“Regal,” Ben finds the right word. Hux inclines his head gracefully at that and extends both his hands for Ben to support him.

Having Hux in his arms - even if it’s just helping him get down a horse because of the lack of stirrups - is electrifying. Ben savours it, crossing his forearms under Hux’s thighs, holding him close, letting him look down on him indulgently and card nimble fingers through his woefully shortened hair.

“One thing, Hux,” he muses. “Does every annoying customer of yours get a horrid haircut?”

“Oh Ben.” Fingers scratch along his scalp. “Why do you think I gave you that bowl cut?”

“To piss me off and be rid of me?”

“If I wanted to be rid of you, I would’ve given you the most mundane, boring and forgettable haircut there is. That way, you’d never even think of coming to see me again.”

Ben laughs. Of course. He  _ did _ run back to Hux the very next day. What a strategist Hux must be.

Finalizer is snorting with impatience behind them so their first kiss is only a short one.

But the summer is long. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more canolli Kylux come to my [ Tumblr ](http://sinningsquire.tumblr.com/)


End file.
